


A Testimony of Hours

by fascinationex



Category: Cultist Simulator (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Expect Cultist Simulator Typical Things and Presume Yourself Warned Accordingly, Modern Character In Cultist Simulator, Modern OC Explores Cultist Sim World, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Some 1920s era -isms, Time Travel, Updated as necessary, Worldbuilding, canon-typical incest, updates may be unreliable
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-19 09:08:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29872362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fascinationex/pseuds/fascinationex
Summary: The death of an Hour was a significant event in any of the histories.Time being not so much a line as a dimension, and the thrashing death throes of the Seven-Coils being vast and terrible, it was inevitable that echoes of that moment would ripple through subtle flaws and fractures. From the wounds in the Wound, stumbling hysterical into the temple behind the world, came Cassandra.
Relationships: various
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	1. p r o l o g u e

**Author's Note:**

> \- This story is a W.I.P. It is not finished! **It may never be finished.** Updates will be unreliable.  
> \- I haven't played all expansions, so there may be some deviation from lore that is further explained in expansions and there may be some deviation from lore/character info that is later released.

The death of an Hour was a significant event in any of the histories. Time being not so much a line as a dimension, and the thrashing death throes of the Seven-Coils being vast and terrible, it was inevitable that echoes of that moment would ripple through subtle flaws and fractures. From the wounds in the Wound, stumbling hysterical into the temple behind the world, came Cassandra.

The interruption of one tiny mortal life from—elsewhere, an uncertain future predicated upon an unknown history—was not of much consequence to anybody except herself. At least then. 

Even if it had been, everyone who was anyone was much too busy to even notice her. 

The Seven-Coils was drowned in its own golden blood, ambushed by The Cartographer of Scars. He bathed the priestess in that same blood amidst the screams and howls of attendants, and from its golden spill she rose the Mother. 

This much, Cassandra couldn't forget. Ever. The sight, fascinating and horrifying in equal measure, was carved into her, deeper than just her flesh and bones. 

It wasn't the only thing Cassandra saw, but it was the one she could never fully forget or deny. Where other scenes shrunk into the dark shadows and underpasses of her mind, softened by time and her brain's tendency toward self preservation, that one remained forever mercilessly illuminated, in dreams and fleeting hallucinations. When Cassandra closed her eyes she saw the scarred and blinded soldier; the thrashing, endless Seven-Coils; the Mother stretching, splendid and serpentine, from her pool of gold.

The knowledge was a wound in her from which light sometimes leaked—under the right circumstances.

She did what anyone would do, when presented with this terrible clash of Hours: she turned and fled. Golden blood splattered underfoot, and where it touched Cassandra's skin, it burned. 

The passage through the place behind the world was bewildering and terrible. 

The sky was purple, shot with streaks of golden red light. The ground crunched underfoot. Cassandra's eyes were so dazzled by the glory that she could barely see at all.

What she could see, Cassandra wished she could not. Scenes from an unholy war unfolded around her. The Great Mother drank the Tide while it screamed and screamed, and where drops of its essence escaped her hungry mouth they fell, red and glistening, to the black earth and twisted roots of the Wood below. 

Cassandra shut her eyes tightly against such things and stumbled on. The ground, and her throat, were very dry. 

Distance seemed bafflingly subjective. There was a staircase of black glass knives, which looked short and seemed at least to lead to some place—perhaps away, home, to her couch and her laptop and her cat, or at least to some place where her mind wasn't trying to turn itself inside out and evacuate through her nose. But each step bit into her foot, straight through her shoe. The ascent became interminable the second she approached to climb. From beneath sounded only strange grunts and moans, and the quick shallow lapping of tongues in fluid.

Cassandra could not climb even a few steps, and reeled away on trembling legs. 

"There is a door here that will open, but only for a little while," said someone, eventually. The voice was sharp, feminine. 

"But can I go?" Cassandra croaked. Anywhere was better. 

"Yes.” With all else in such confusion and disarray, the clear certainty with which it was said rang like a bell in her skull, and all she felt was relief. Cassandra could go. Go where? She wasn't sure. Hopefully somewhere darker.

The glory was blinding, but when Cassandra cracked her eyes open just enough to see her interlocutor, she had the overwhelming impression of _edges_ , sharp and gleaming like a smile beneath that merciless light. 

The threshold was near.

Cassandra heaved herself across. 

And then she caved in on herself, insensible.


	2. J a n n i n g s

For days after, Cassandra didn't know herself. Her bones burned. Her breath came in gasps only. Her eyes leaked light, and when she opened them at all she cried out from the pain of its brightness. 

She did not die. Somehow. 

On the fourth day, she was... aware again. Although it didn't take her long to wish she was not. 

Cassandra blinked her aching eyes open to regular morning sunlight. She stared, blearily, at the floor from where she was ensconced upon someone's couch. Most of her was covered by a thick blanket. Despite the heat of her bones, her skin felt cold. The light from a window lanced across the tiles with their old fashioned geometric patterns. The light did not hurt. 

She thought, involuntarily, of writhing, of golden blood and the shattering, merciless light, behind her eyes and in her dreams. She flinched anyway. 

Her bones still felt hot, under all their weight of tissue and fluid. 

There was a large vase on a side table, tall and faceted and looking faintly like someone had lifted a wall lamp and repurposed it. From its mouth a profusion of greenery spilled. Cassandra stared at it for a long few minutes, and tried hard to stop thinking of anything at all. 

She could hear footsteps approaching, but it took her long seconds to pull her numb gaze away from the plant. 

A tall man with round eyeglasses and a dark, trimmed beard appeared in the doorway to the light-filled sun room. She had confused memories of the last few days, but she remembered this face, vaguely. 

He had worn darker glasses then, a precaution in case she opened her eyes, she now realised. She clearly had, so—wise of him. 

"Ah," he said, pausing to see her awake and lucid. "I thought I heard you. Or, rather, I did not hear you. I thought you must be either awake, or dead." 

“Uh.” Dead? She wasn’t touching that. But her throat was scratchy. Who knew what she’d been yelling. Cassandra levered herself up upon one elbow. "Where am I?" 

"London, in England," he said. His accent was definitely not English when he spoke. He sounded European, but Cassandra was rubbish at picking out the complexities of accents. German, maybe. Or Austrian. Or something else. "If this city still exists by that name where you come from." 

"Huh?" Cassandra squinted. "London, yeah, I know London." 

Why London was a place she was in, she couldn't say. But she was aware of London as a place. At least they spoke English. At least it wasn't a city full of knives in the floors, and there wouldn't be golden blood leaking across the confusing footpaths… 

He nodded, apparently satisfied. 

"Good. You will not be so lost, then, when I leave. Now," he pulled out a chair and sat down. The cushion on it was shot through with metallic thread. Little lines of gold, like they might be seeping from wounds. 

Cassandra's stare was interrupted when the man took his seat. His clothes were plain but neat: dark trousers, white shirt. 

"You must tell me what you have seen." 

She blinked rapidly. "Seen?" But she knew, already, exactly what he meant—or she thought she did. 

His mouth flattened into a sharp line behind his beard. For a second, he reminded her powerfully of the scarred man who drowned the creature in its own blood. 

"Seen. In the glory. I took this from you," he said, and slipped a tiny phial from his pocket. 

In its minute space was captured a single, golden drop. Cassandra cringed away from it, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away, fascinated and helpless. At length, he put it the hell away again. 

"So you know it.” 

“Ugh.” She felt sick and wobbly. 

“This doesn't belong to any Hour that lives in this history," he said. 

"No," she agreed, barely knowing what she was saying. The emphasis on 'this' history was baffling. And she could practically feel the proper noun in 'Hour', which seemed both right and wrong at the same time. But. _But._

But she knew what that tiny bead of gold was. She’d dreamed about it, while she was sick. She licked her lips. She felt like she'd been thirsty for weeks. "I don't know what it was. It died. A man with his eyes all cut out drowned it." 

"Ah," he breathed, leaning back in his seat. His gaze didn't get any less intent, but at least his eyes were further away. 

"Come, tell me everything you remember. Before it fades." 

Cassandra hoped it would fade. 

But she told him everything anyway. The stair of sharp edges, the voice of knives, the stomach-turning sound of the sea, wine-dark, screaming as it was drunk and drunk and drunk—every scene was meaningless and frightening to her, but the man _hmmed_ and nodded with every thing she said. 

“What does it mean? Where am I?” 

“London, as I said. Although perhaps not the London with which you’re familiar.” 

“And who are you, anyway? Why am I here? What happened?” 

There was a short, considering pause. In the end, only one question was answered: "My name is Gottlob Jannings," he introduced himself. "You knew, yesterday, but you have forgotten it.” 

She opened her mouth. Closed it again. “I wasn’t myself.” She must have had a terrible fever. 

He tilted his head. “If you’d been struck by more than a drop or two…” 

Cassandra stared at him. 

A drop or two…? 

Her heart thumped in her chest, heavy and thunderous and persistent. 

A moment later she wrenched the blanket away from her legs, and saw the scar. It glowed softly, a twisting line in the meat of her calf, the golden colour of honey held up to sunlight. Or of a particular kind of blood. 

Her blood rushed in her ears. It took her long, long seconds to drag her eyes away from that glow. 

“..ttably, it seems your blood is no different to anyone else’s,” Jannings was saying. 

“You took my _blood_?” 

His eyebrows rose. “I bring you in from the cold, I care for you, I listen to your ranting and screaming, on and on and on, like a madwoman—you would have refused me?” 

She twitched. “That’s not really—no. No, of course not.” She wouldn’t have. But she’d have liked to have been asked. To have it acknowledged that it was in her power to refuse. 

From the twist of his mouth, Jannings knew this, and was just as pleased not to have had the conversation. 

There was silence for a long moment. 

Cassandra wasn’t even sure which questions to ask. ‘Where am I’ had gotten her the useless and baffling answer of ‘London’; and ‘why am I here?’, and ‘what happened?’ had gotten her no answers at all. 

Jannings clapped his hands, startling her. 

“It is good you came around today,” he said, getting up from his seat at last. “I will be leaving on the evening train, and you can’t stay here.” 

Jannings got her up with main strength. Her limbs were nearly too weak to keep her upright, so she had no chance of fighting his efforts at moving her. There was a mug of broth, a cup of strong sweet wine, and a quite ugly skirt which he’d got from god-knew-where—it was synthetic silk, long enough to cover her new scar, and arranged in tiny swishy pleats—and all throughout this business he went to and fro, arranging his own things. 

She felt marginally better with the light meal and heavy wine, but she was still following him, aching and damn dazed and confused, when he put ten pounds in her hand and wrapped her in what must have been one of his own older coats. 

“Off you go, now, Miss,” he said then. 

“What,” said Cassandra. 

Unfortunately, Jannings was not given to repeating himself, and he was also not a man to be gainsaid. 

This was how Cassandra found herself bundled up and ejected into the chilly streets of London—although it didn’t bloody look like any London she’d ever envisioned. 

Outside of what she now realised must have been a very expensive little series of apartments, Cassandra found the street crowded with a mix of fast-moving, fearless pedestrians and great, old-fashioned vehicles with enormous mud guards. There were no neon lights, but three bicycles whizzed by—ridden by young men in plus fours—and there was a _pony_ across the street, dozing into its nose bag, one hoof cocked, while a grizzled old man unloaded its cargo. 

Jannings seemed to take this in stride, as quite the regular experience. 

He got into a car with a long nose and gigantic mud guards. The wheels, beneath the rubbery tyre exterior, were made with wooden spokes. 

“What’s the date?” she cried, wild-eyed, as the driver helped with the luggage and then held the door for Jannings. 

“The twenty-eighth of June,” said Jannings, without pause or hesitation. Then, “Good-bye.” 

And the door shut with a click. 

The driver spared one short, unhappy glance for her—undoubtedly he saw a bedraggled and confused woman, with no hat, in mismatched clothing, who apparently did not even know what day it was—and then he closed his door, too, and the car was gone, growling as it rolled. 

“Alright there?” someone else asked, looking, when she turned, as though he already regretted the question. He was only a passerby, Cassandra thought, caught mid-step while she yelled about the date. He was clean shaven, fully dressed in a suit and a vest and a white shirt. He had a boater hat. Cassandra had never seen one in real life before. 

She opened her mouth. Closed it again. 

Shook her head. “I’m sorry, excuse me, what year is it?” 

If anything he seemed less pleased to be talking to her. 

But he told her. 

Her stomach did a horrible flop. 

“Do you need the police?” he wondered. 

What on earth were the police going to do? 

“Ah… no. Thank you,” she said, trying quite hard to remember her manners. “No.”

This seemed to be the extent of the kindness of strangers, because he touched one finger to his hat and walked around her, off about his business. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you find something you like about this fic particularly, please feel free to let me know in a comment, if commenting is your jam. otherwise, have a good night.


	3. e c d y s i a s t s

Although the money Jannings left her proved to be a great deal more than Cassandra initially supposed, it was clear that it wouldn't last the week. Four days, perhaps, if she was lucky and careful—more, if she was lucky and less careful, and fancied her chances of wandering the streets at night instead of finding somewhere safe to set down. 

She did not fancy them, but but not knowing how or when she might get more made her risk it anyway. 

It did not take Cassandra very long to feel subtly unwelcome on the streets of the unfamiliar city after dark: the tiniest sliver of a moon was all that shone down, and the air seemed frightfully cold. The cobbled streets of the city were narrow and shadowed, and as she moved through and the sun really disappeared, strange people—people like Cassandra, probably, who did not quite fit—seemed to come spilling up out of the woodwork and the gutters. 

She was exhausted, but she kept walking, feeling that it was safer to at least appear as though she had somewhere to be, even as the streets emptied out. There were lights in windows above the shops, but none on the lower floors. Cassandra was exquisitely aware of the soft glow from the scar on her calf, which could only really be mistaken for a stray slice of moonlight in motion. 

At length—at what seemed like _great length_ , really, while she walked and walked and her thoughts circled endlessly, frantic and anxious inside her head—the lights of the upper windows, too, began to go out. For city blocks, everything seemed icy and quiet, with only the occasional cry of a tramp or a drunkard to brighten the night. 

Come morning, Cassandra decided, balling her hands into the oversized sleeves of Jannings’ old donated coat, she would see about finding somewhere to rest, no matter the expense. She had already begun to shiver and couldn’t seem to stop. 

She supposed she’d have to find some kind of employment, just to keep herself, at least until she could find _any_ information about how she’d come to be here. She wasn’t sure what, though; her job was in an office, and involved spreadsheets and computers. 

She knew the year now, and wasn’t certain that her Microsoft Office skills would translate, exactly… 

She’d have to find something. Even with no identification, no references— 

Cassandra felt the wild flutter of panic in her belly once more. It wasn’t helping anything, of course, but she felt it all the same. 

Ahead, a rectangle of light spilled out across the ground and black silhouettes streamed into it, grotesquely elongated by the angle of the light. It reminded her of a different light, much more powerful and significant, soaking horribly into her brain, for just a moment. 

This wasn’t a crack in reality, or a doorway fit to lead her home—of course not. It was just a cabaret, and from inside the last patrons were wrapping themselves in their coats and leaving. The warm air that rushed out smelled of cigarette smoke and cloves. 

Cassandra raised her eyes automatically and breathed out a cloud of hot, misty air through her teeth. 

The sign above the door, dimly lit by the light spilling forth from within, showed a woman’s leg, stark on the white background. It seemed bare, but her skin was a stocking peeled back to the knee, and above, her thigh was a delicately painted thing of muscle and tendon, rich and swollen with blood. 

‘Ecdysis,’ read the sign. The Ecdysis Club. 

“Excuse me, Miss, you look a bit lost. Surely it’s _late_ to be meeting a friend?” The man was tall, elegant, with a sharply cut suit and a neatly trimmed moustache. Despite the gentle slur in his tone, his eyes were lucid and bright. 

Cassandra took a step back. A knot of other patrons reeled past, bulky men in heavy coats, arguing with one another amid laughter. 

“Victor.” His companion wrapped her hands around the bend of his arm. Her short hair was a perfect rounded cap, thick and glossy on her skull. The ends curled around her cheekbones. “Don’t be harassing strangers on the street now—you must excuse my brother, he’s had too much to drink.” 

She, too, looked like she’d had rather a lot to drink, from the way she supported herself by leaning into her brother’s tall body. She slid her hand inside his coat at the belly—for warmth, Cassandra hoped. 

“Shh, shh,” crooned Victor, enveloping his sister in the circle of one arm. “Perhaps she’s lost. Are you lost, Miss?” 

Those lucid eyes seemed brighter still. Something stirred in Cassandra’s hind-brain: a scarred face, eyes put out. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end, and then abruptly flattened, slicked down like the fur of a cowed animal. She felt she might be in terrible danger if she said ‘yes’. 

She shook her head. She looked at his shoes, shiny and patent leather. “No. No, I’m sorry to interrupt you,” she said, although she hadn’t. “I’m just on my way now.” 

“Are you sure? You might get in terrible trouble, wandering like that.” The woman nodded to the ground, and Cassandra followed her gaze where—oh, no, she was nodding to Cassandra’s feet, instead, where the dull yellow glow from her scar shone ever so subtly. It was clear in the darkness of the street outside the cabaret. 

Cassandra shoved her left leg behind her right, hoping to obscure it. It didn’t help very much. “Erm, might I?” She wasn’t sure what anyone would care, except that it was strange, but perhaps they knew something she didn’t. She reeled between the certainty that she wanted nothing to do with any drunk stranger on the street, and the acknowledgement that she rather needed help. “I am, actually, er, looking for somewhere I can stay for the night. I’m—newly arrived in the city?” 

This only prompted a sharp, inelegant snort from the man. 

“The night? It’s not four hours til dawn,” Victor said, looking up as though he could even see the path of the sun in the night sky. When he tilted his head he swayed, gently, on his heels, and his sister smiled and steadied him—though she, too, was not that steady. They weaved gently together for a second, apparently perfectly attuned. 

“Well,” hedged Cassandra, and then didn’t finish the sentence at all. Instead she hunched harder against the cold and said, “Anyway, if there’s a—er, a hostel, or something, nearby—” 

“A hostel,” repeated Victor. “What, a doss-house?” 

Cassandra paused. “I beg your pardon?” 

There was a short silence, and then a sharp noise that may or may not have been the sister kicking the brother in his leg. If she had, no discomfort crossed his face. “— _glowing_ , Vic,” she heard her say, and Cassandra bit the inside of her mouth. 

“I—you know what, never mind, I really must be going,” she started, only to be collected in one _incredibly steely arm_ and reeled in by the drunken Victor as she tried to pass. 

“Rose’s quite right,” he informed her, relinquishing her arm just in time for his sister to catch it instead. If anything she was, inconceivably, stronger. Cassandra’s tugging on her arm seemed only to encourage her. “We’re four blocks away; you can have the couch until morning. I’m sure you have—an interesting story to tell.” 

“I, no, I don’t think—” 

But even as Victor stepped away, long legs covering the ground as he twirled, head tipped back to view the stars above, Rose’s chilly fingers clamped down on Cassandra’s arm. 

“The Suppression Bureau watches the club sometimes, you know,” she breathed, leaning into Cassandra now. The words meant nothing to Cassandra, but her tone was urgent. “Come on.” 

It was enough that Cassandra took the first step on her own, and then momentum carried her. Rose’s weight on her side seemed compelling, and she was still terribly tired. 

Maybe they were going to turn out to be demented serial killers or something, Cassandra reflected, but at least she’d probably die warm. After the day—the _week_ —she’d had, probably that was the best she could ask for. 

She glanced over her shoulder one last time. In the doorway of the cabaret club, a dark-eyed woman with a bindi prominent upon her forehead watched, unblinking. A second after catching Cassandra’s gaze, she exhaled a long plume of smoke from her cigarette and closed the door. The light into the street went out. 

Victor and Rose together, and by turns, coaxed and persuaded—and sometimes just tugged—Cassandra through a few more streets in the dark. It did not escape her notice that Rose was watching the ground intently, staring at the shadows cast against the soft glow of her scar. 

They arrived at a terraced townhouse with a tiny, sweet front garden, set back from the road. In the dark it seemed indistinguishable from its neighbours. Rose, her arm firmly locked around Cassandra’s, kept them at the foot of the short, broad steps that led up to the door while Victor preceded them. 

She rocked back and forth upon her heels and peered down at their shoes. 

“Will you show me,” she said, as Victor unlocked the door with the gentle clatter of keys, which seemed terribly loud in the predawn darkness. 

“Um,” said Cassandra. She didn’t have to answer, though, because a dim light came from within the house and Rose began to hustle her up the stairs with her implacable grip. 

Victor held the door for them both. He shut it behind them, too, with a definite sort of finality that made Cassandra’s heart race. 

God, what if they _were_ crazed serial killers or something? Cassandra was a product of the ‘stranger danger’ campaigns of the late twentieth century. Did she really not know better than to follow suspicious and unfamiliar people home? 

Victor seemed to think it perfectly normal to help Rose divest herself of her coat before even taking off his own. Her dress underneath was a long, shapeless sheath, skimming her hips and sort of vaguely hinting that she had the general build of a prepubescent child. A long scoop of her back was visible, showing the vertebrae between her shoulder-blades pressing sharp and knifelike beneath the skin. 

The dim glow illuminating parts of the corridor must have been from a lamp deeper in the house. Cassandra could see the foot of a staircase up to a second level. The steps were covered in a lightly worn carpet, and whatever was above on the landing was shrouded in shadows. 

Cassandra felt quite naked to be handing over her own coat—that giant thing that had been given to her by Jannings—but she also didn’t feel as though she had much choice when Victor held out his hands expectantly. Upon the coat hook by the door it went. 

At least, she thought, he had not tried to touch her. 

Rose had no such compunction. Her hand was small when she laid it upon Cassandra’s bare arm. “What an odd style,” she said, peering closer. 

“Oh,” said Cassandra. She couldn’t remember what she’d been wearing. Jannings had given her the skirt, true, but he’d offered no clarification on what might have happened to her trousers. Tucked into her skirt she was wearing a tee-shirt printed with ‘SORRY I’M LATE MY CAT WAS SITTING ON MY LAP’ in text of varying sizes and styles. “I guess it is,” she said, and then offered absolutely no further clarification. 

There was a short, uncomfortable pause. 

“Shy, are you?” Rose asked, looking up at her from beneath her eyelashes and her short fringe. It was a look that suited her sharp, pretty face. Cassandra swallowed hard, feeling a flutter low in her belly. “Come, sit down, I’ll put on something for tea.” 

“It’s three in the morning,” Victor reminded her. 

“Do you like sugar?” Rose asked, ignoring him utterly. 

Since it seemed she was to be made tea whether or not she wanted any, Cassandra didn’t want to put her to any more effort than she had to. “No, thank you.” 

Victor led her to the front room, where he waited for her to choose a seat before sitting himself, and then she sat in frozen and awkward silence while Rose could be heard clattering away deeper in the house. 

“Where did you say you’d come from? You aren’t local.” There was a tiny slur in some of his vowels. Cassandra wondered how much he had had to drink. 

“No, I’m not local,” she agreed. Victor’s eyes seemed to linger on her legs, and she wasn’t sure if that was some weird sexual thing or if it was the quiet glow of her scar. It was almost impossible to hide when her skirt rode up with sitting. She crossed her legs, pressing it to the seat. The pressure made it throb. “I’m a bit lost, actually,” she admitted. 

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped before him. “But that doesn’t say where you’re from, miss.” 

“Cassandra,” she said. 

He hummed. “Delighted to meet you, Cassandra. I am Victor, and my sister is Rose.” 

“Nice to meet you,” said Cassandra automatically. Now that she was inside where it was warm, and sitting in the ruddy glow of the single lamp—an art nouveau thing with a curved neck and a shade like a tie-dyed flower—she felt supremely exhausted. 

Rose re-emerged with an entire tea service on a silvery tray, which she set upon a low table. The set itself was cream coloured with bright green leaves painted on it. 

“If it’s not too forward,” Rose began, even as she was pouring tea out for Cassandra. Cassandra watched her do it, and then move on to a cup for her brother, and then serve herself last of all. The tea smelled soft and faintly bitter and achingly familiar. Steam curled up towards the ceiling. “I’d very much like to see that mark on your leg.” 

“It’s not too forward,” said Cassandra slowly. She couldn’t help but hesitate. Something about the pair of them made her feel like all her senses had to be sharp and on point, and she didn’t have the energy. She was still hot and sick-feeling, and now she had been walking for hours and her body was tired, too. 

But it wasn’t a big request, was it. 

She unfolded her legs and twisted a little in her seat, flashing the telling, honey-gold shape of the scar at Rose. 

“Here’s your tea,” said Rose, holding it out to her by its saucer, and when Cassandra at last took it, she dropped to her knee on the carpet and peered in so close that Cassandra could pick out the individual, gleaming strands of her dark hair in the light. 

“What a thing!” she exclaimed. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Victor!” 

Then he came, too, and Cassandra felt Rose’s sharp, small fingers on her leg, holding it steady for inspection. 

She took a too-big gulp of her tea. 

“You could ask Madame Amavasya about it,” Victor said, “she is particularly knowledgeable about—these sorts of matters.” 

_What sorts of matters are those_ , Cassandra wanted to ask. She didn’t, though, because she didn’t want to seem even less knowledgeable to either of them. Rose looked up at her with her sharp, pale eyes, though, and Cassandra felt like she could see straight through her anyway. 

“That’s the owner of the club,” she explained, for Cassandra’s benefit. 

“The Ecdysis Club?” Cassandra repeated. That was it, wasn’t it? 

Rose nodded, sharp edges of her hair swinging around her equally sharp cheekbones. She was pretty, Cassandra couldn’t help but notice again. Although it was more in spite of, than because of, the fashions of the age. 

They peered at her stupid leg and its odd, soft-glowing scar for what seemed like a very long time, and Cassandra finished her tea and tried to be patient with their whispered conversations and poking and prodding. 

They did not, she got the impression, know as much about—well, anything to do with whatever they thought her scar meant—as they wanted to. What an odd pair they were! But it was oddest of all, she thought, that neither of them actually asked her where she’d got such an injury. 

She grew tireder and tireder as the day caught up with her. At length, they let her be and sat back in their own seats, sipping their own tea as the night outside marched slowly but inexorably towards the cold dawn. 

“’S a funny name for a cabaret,” Cassandra said, slowly, even as Rose watched her begin to doze on the couch. 

“Hmm?” Victor prompted. 

“Ecdysis. Like a cicada. Shedding its skin…” 

“Is that what it means? Shedding skin?” 

“Mmm. Not like a snake, though. Just arthropods.” 

“How …specific,” said Victor, slowly. “Despite your accent, you do speak as though you’re educated, Cassandra.” 

“Oh, sure.” She sagged, mumbling her words. Her eyes just did not want to stay open. “I’m just a _font_ of useless information.” 

“Ah. Hmm. About what, I wonder?” 

She didn't answer. Her tongue felt like iron.

Someone removed the cup from her hand. 

“She’s out,” said Rose. Something creaked. 

The last thing she heard was Victor’s quiet hum of agreement. And then, nothing.


	4. kindness from strangers

Cassandra woke, many hours later, to bright sunlight streaming through a window and the creak of footsteps on wooden floors.

She did not understand the parts of her that were sore. 

Going home with two complete strangers who had uncertain intentions towards her could have resulted in all sorts of horrors, most of which she’d been thoroughly educated upon by lurid media reports of murders and sex crimes—usually juxtaposed right against the page three girls.

She felt as though, if she’d had some kind of vaginal pain, she’d have understood. Instead what Cassandra felt was a sore throat, a shallow cut across her wrist and the lingering taste of blood in her mouth.

“Oh, look at your arm. Did you have that last night?” Rose asked, bright-eyed and unblinking, when Cassandra stumbled after her into the kitchen. 

The room was distinctly old-fashioned with patterned tiles and a free-standing iron stove. There was no fridge that Cassandra could see. 

Cassandra looked at Rose, and then back at her arm. She tongued the sore part of her mouth, wondering if her gums were swollen. Was that another cut? It hurt. She didn’t know if Rose and Victor had hurt her or if it had just been another horrific dream. 

She opened her mouth. Closed it. 

“Never mind it,” she told her, at last. 

“All right,” said Rose. She smiled, and her eyes narrowed. “If you’re looking for a position, I’ve heard there’s work at the hospital. Victor knows someone who knows someone who’s a—porter? I think. That sort of thing never much interests me,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

“Oh. Yes, I am—very much. Could you—could he?—introduce me?” Knowing somebody who knew somebody was pretty much the only way to get jobs, in Cassandra’s admittedly limited experience. _She’d_ certainly never gotten one by applying online or dropping off a resume. 

Rose hummed. “I’m sure he will.”

“So you don’t—erm, work? Yourself?” Cassandra asked, hoping that wasn’t rude. 

“Work?” Rose looked at her and blinked once, twice, slowly. “My word. No, I keep house for my brother.”

“Ah,” said Cassandra. She guessed she wasn’t completely sure what ‘keeping house’ entailed. Maybe that _was_ a full time job, in this day and age. “Sorry, I’m not familiar with the customs.”

Again, Rose hummed. “I’ll say.”

Awkwardly, Cassandra stirred another teaspoon of sugar into her tea. It did not need it. Rose watched her, quiet and narrow eyed.

Cassandra decided it was best, perhaps, not to try to fill the silence. 

It wasn’t long before Victor was also up for the day, tapping quietly on the stairs as he came down for breakfast. If he was affected by all the booze he must have had the evening prior, it didn’t show in his manner or dress.

Rose cooked a breakfast of toasted white bread, bacon and eggs, with thick slices of black pudding that made Cassandra’s stomach flip on sight. Thankfully, she wasn’t required to eat it; apparently this fare was entirely for Victor. 

“I suppose people don’t eat this well, wherever you’re from?” Rose asked, apparently paying close attention to her face.

“Um, no. I suppose not,” Cassandra hedged. ‘Well’ was a matter of opinion. She usually wanted fresh food for breakfast—fruit, or maybe eggs with spinach and tomato, or fresh orange juice. But Rose sure didn’t seem afraid to just bang all this animal fat in a pan and fry it in butter.

...The bacon looked pretty good, to be fair.

“Ah. Well, Victor’s a growing man,” purred Rose, wiping out her cast iron skillet and hanging it up.

“Growing outwards, apparently,” he interjected, which did not stop him from accepting the plate she’d created for him. He tugged her closer and kissed her on the mouth, and Cassandra chose to presume that some siblings just… did this. Maybe it was a thing in this era. Who knew. 

She took her tea while Victor ate, which lasted three cups. He and rose talked about small things over the table: gossip, mostly, and his plans for the work day, which seemed to revolve around the management of tenants. It seemed that they—or he, she supposed—had land somewhere, and rented it. Rose seemed more or less incurious about these matters. 

At last he was done, and then he looked over at Cassandra. For a lightning strike moment she felt like she should freeze under his gaze. 

“Come on then. Let’s go.”

She felt once again swept up and bewildered, but she thanked Rose politely and followed her brother out, taking her coat from the hook beside the door as she went. Victor, judiciously, insisted on holding it for her by the collar and letting her slide her arms in. Cassandra felt his breath upon her neck as he did it. 

She shoved her hands in her pockets, still worrying at the sore parts of her mouth. She was relieved to find that she could still feel the remains of Jannings’ money in her pocket. 

“Did you think we’d have need to steal from you?” Victor wondered, apparently unbothered. 

“What? No!” she yanked her hands out, too put off to really think through how or why he knew there’d been money in the pockets to begin with. 

“Humm,” he murmured, locking the door behind them. “We shall take everything you’ve said so far as the truth then. You’re a poor liar, Miss.” 

She didn’t know what to say to that. He swept elegantly down the stair and out onto the street, and she followed helplessly in his wake like a duckling after a duck.

The man he took her to meet wasn’t _a_ porter, his _name_ was Porter—Rose had only been spectacularly vague on the matter. 

He was a short man, with thick brows and clean hands. He looked her up and down with a judging eye and then didn’t bother to provide a judgement. 

“Yes,” he said, to Victor, quite over her head. “I’ll find her something.”

“Capital,” said Victor, as though he was already thinking of something else. “I have a meeting, so you’ll have to muddle along on your own. I had a lovely time, Cassandra.”

“Did you?” she asked aloud, but he was already departing. 

“I wouldn’t bother,” said Porter, sharp and callous, “as he’s too fixated with his own sister to offer you more than the time of day.”

“Excuse me?” Cassandra barked. 

He clicked his tongue. At her, not to her.

Porter, she learned, had once been a privately employed barber, and had stopped that for some reason. He now used those skills in the service of several sanatoriums, whose more permanent inmates supplied the materials for expensive wigs. In one such hospital, he knew a man who had mentioned ‘something’ that could be got for her.

Cassandra had the distinct impression that she was expected to take whatever position was offered to her and be grateful for it and like it, thank you very much. 

The hospital to which he took her seemed dreary and run down, and smelled like chemical cleaners. He introduced her to yet another man, and then left to do whatever it was that Porter did when he was hacking the hair off lunatics, and Cassandra was frankly glad to be shot of him. 

Leo actually _was_ a porter by profession, one of those whose job was lifting heavy things and moving them elsewhere: furniture, linens, cadavers. He was also a great deal pleasanter than Porter had been—or Victor, for that matter. Pleasantness, in fact, seemed to exude from him: a keen power of trustworthiness and charm. 

He had a clean shaven face with a square jaw and a long, straight nose, and olive skin that would probably have tanned well …somewhere other than London.

“Mildred runs the laundry,” he said, taking her through the chemical-scented corridors. Nurses in long white dresses with little caps—which Cassandra had thought a media fiction—went past on their business, and one or two smiled and greeted Leo as they went. Clearly, he was well-liked. “She’s a bit of a martinet,” he admitted, “but I’ve heard she’s fair.”

Having any kind of job at all on her second day stuck in some baffling alternative universe seemed miraculous to Cassandra, and she’d had strict bosses before. 

“I’m sure I’ll manage,” she said, with more confidence than she felt. She would _have_ to manage. She knew nobody, had no savings, and could not rely on the _kindness of strangers_ any longer than she already had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as ever, if you enjoyed something about this chapter please feel free to let me know in a comment, if you prefer to comment. otherwise, have a good afternoon!


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